Cascaded Multilevel Active Rectifier Fed Three-Phase Smart Pump Load on Single-Phase Rural Feeder

Irrigation pumping system that marks a sizeable load on the grid is generally blind on assessment of peak demand hours, while in operation. Such operation if smartly controlled may avoid shedding of some connected loads to match power demand. Moreover, due to the accessibility of only single-phase supply, the rural pump three-phase loads are supplied through either by splitting ac single phase into three phases or by single phase ac–dc three-phase ac conversion. Such configuration suffers from power quality problems, higher capacitor voltages, and common mode voltage problems, etc. A seven-level cascaded multilevel active rectifier (CMAR) is proposed here to provide power through three different dc links to reduce the voltage rating of capacitors, feed vector-controlled open end winding induction motor pump in addition to variable illumination LED lighting. The control employed for CMAR enhances the grid support operation by flexibly controlling power on the dc links. The control is invoked by adjusting the speed of the pump by sensing the grid frequency using droop characteristics thereby acting as smart pump load. The effectiveness of the proposed configuration and control is investigated both through simulation and experimentation on same scale hardware prototype.